FRA Announces $25 Million Available for Positive Train Control Implementation

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Hat tip, the RailfanLegal Yahoo! group: FRA Announces $25 Million Available for Positive Train Control Implementation

FRA Announces $25 Million Available for Positive Train Control Implementation

Monday, April 4, 2016

Administration has requested $1.25 billion to help railroads achieve implementation

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transporation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) today announced that it is accepting applications for $25 million in competitive grant funding available to railroads, suppliers, and state and local governments for Positive Train Control (PTC) implementation. The funding is part of the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act that funds the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Positive train control is a long overdue technology that prevents accidents and saves lives,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “These funds will help us get closer to implementing PTC, and I encourage applications that can make these limited dollars go as far as possible.”

Applications will be accepted until May 19, 2016, and FRA will give preference to projects that would provide the greatest level of public safety benefits. As part of the President’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal, FRA requested $1.25 billion to assist commuter and short line railroads with implementing PTC.

PTC prevents certain train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, incursions into established work zone limits, and trains going to the wrong tracks because a switch was left in the wrong position. In 2008, Congress mandated PTC implementation on certain railroad main lines where railroads transport poisonous-by-inhalation hazardous (PIH) or toxic-by-inhalation hazardous (TIH) materials, or any line where a railroad provides regularly scheduled passenger service. Last October, Congress extended the original deadline from December 31, 2015 to at least December 31, 2018.
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View a list of when railroads predict that they will achieve full PTC implementation: https://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0628

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1. Amtrak crash: state-of-the art safety gear was operational at time of fatal collision

Amtrak crash: state-of-the art safety gear was operational at time of fatal collision

Positive train control system was ‘functioning’ at site of Sunday crash that killed two workers, but did not slow locomotive or alert engineer of maintenance ahead

Gregg Levine

Wednesday 6 April 2016 14.44 EDT

A newly upgraded safety system and regulations governing track maintenance should have been enough to prevent a fatal collision between an Amtrak passenger train and a construction vehicle on Sunday.
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The railroad industry’s state-of-the-art safety technology – a package of communications and engineering upgrades known as positive train control (PTC) – was in place and operational at the site of the deadly crash, an Amtrak spokesman confirmed. But some actions normally expected from the system did not occur: the alerting of the train’s engineer and the automatic slowing or stopping of the locomotive.

PTC “was installed and functioning on the track and the locomotive” involved in the Sunday crash, Craig Shultz, an Amtrak senior communications officer, told the Guardian. ... Light maintenance on active rail lines is not uncommon, according to Allan Zarembski, director of the railroad engineering and safety program at the University of Delaware. But, Zarembski told CNN, the presence of heavy construction equipment is.
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Sunday’s fatalities were the second and third for workers on Amtrak’s North-east Corridor in just the last five weeks, according to the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, a union that represents track workers. After a death in early March, Amtrak said it enhanced its safety protocols to include a “zero-tolerance” policy for violations.

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2. Amtrak crash shows U.S. anti rail-collision system may have gaps

World | Tue Apr 5, 2016 4:02pm EDT
Related: U.S.

Amtrak crash shows U.S. anti rail-collision system may have gaps

By Scott Malone

Sunday's fatal Pennsylvania Amtrak accident may have exposed possible blind spots in a nationwide collision prevention system that is meant to stop crashes on U.S. railroads.

Amtrak last year became the first U.S. railroad to fully install "positive train control" (PTC) systems on its routes {in the Northeast Corridor}, a congressionally mandated technology that uses antennae on locomotives and sensors on tracks to monitor trains' precise location and prevent collisions. ... A dilemma facing railroads is whether to spend funds expanding PTC systems to service vehicles like the backhoe involved in Sunday's crash, or put money into upgrades of aging rail infrastructure.

Officials are still investigating how the backhoe working on the tracks was struck by a Georgia-bound train in Chester, Pennsylvania, killing two construction workers and sending 35 people to hospital. ... It is not yet known whether the vehicle had a PTC device. Some railroads have considered installing them on maintenance equipment. It is not clear if Amtrak has done so, experts said.

"If you have a vehicle that's not riding the rails, but on the shoulder or across the rails or on rubber tires alone and you don't allow the circuit to know you're there, you're outside the PTC system," said Allan Zarembski, a professor at the University of Delaware's College of Engineering who specializes in rail safety.